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Monday, April 27, 2015

Cambodian Investigators and Upcoming Baptisms

Me in a boat soaking up the green-ness while I can

So this Sunday we will be having a baptism! This lady is amazing. Maybe I have already talked about her, but her name is Ming Sok and she is going to be an amazing member of this church. She is the friend of one of the members named Om An Y and she just brought her to church about six weeks ago. Since then she has showed up to church with no reminder and no prompt whatsoever. So about 4 weeks ago we got her number and set up an appointment. She soaked it all up. She follows all the commandments already, and she has already read most of the 1st book of Nephi. Every time we teach her I can feel the Spirit helping us to have effectiveness when we teach. Otherwise these people would be so bored out of their minds trying to pick through our broken Khmer they would ban us from Cambodia. She is excited for baptism, but she is also a little scared. We keep reminding her that if she prays for comfort, she will receive it because we know this is the right path for her. There will be pictures with her in my email next week. I'm seriously so excited for her.

Psaa Orussey, where my first contacting experience in Cambodia was

The following week we will hopefully be holding a baptismal service for two Oms that we have been teaching as well. They live pretty close to our house, and one day Elder Gardiner and I were contacting using one of our games that we play (Operation Find Family). She was outside of her gate taking her trash out. So we walked up to her and asked her if she wanted to learn about Jesus and she said that she was Christian, too, and agreed to have us come back. The first lesson we taught them they were trying hard to pay attention I could tell, but our language skills just weren't cutting it. We didn't have a member with us, though, so we decided that was the problem. We brought Om An Y to the next lesson with them, and it was awesome. They had a lot better time, because Om An Y would cut in (politely) and explain using real Khmer what we were trying to say, and the complicated subjects she could explain, too. So after a few lessons they really started getting into it and we decided to get one of the Oms a bigger version of the Book of Mormon since she has bad eyes (its discouraged to give these out frequently because they are very expensive to make). Then when she came to church the following Sunday (last Sunday), which was also really exciting, she told us she had already read the whole 1st Nephi (which I didn't believe at all but Elder Gardiner was super excited). And then the next time we went to teach them, she was sitting there on her balcony reading out loud to herself halfway through 2nd Nephi. To give credit where credit is due, when we asked her a bunch of questions about what she read, she could pretty easily recite Nephi going back to get the plates and crossing the ocean and everything. So hopefully I will be able to show you pictures of these two Oms in a couple weeks.

A typical Cambodian power line getting worked on by a brave soul

With both of these investigators, I know that it is not me doing the converting at all. And it is really cool to me how when Elder Gardiner looks at me to bear my testimony of the truthfulness of this message, just like the scripture says (D&C 84:85), when I open my mouth I get ideas about what to say. And usually, I can't even follow along with the lesson, but I hope that what I say is helping these 3 investigators of our church come unto Christ and be perfected in him, as well as finding happiness in this life and the next.

Seconds after this picture was taken, Elder Nhum (who I was on splits with for the day) was jumped on by this happy little dog and got all muddy haha

I don't really have any super cool stories to tell this week. I just wanted for everyone who reads my emails to know that I know that God approves of the work I am doing for Him and that He is helping me every step of the way if I just let Him. And He can help anyone. Anyone who just opens the door and lets Him in.

2 comments:

We (Elder and Sister Oveson) were blessed with his translation skill for us on Sunday. We have been telling him he would translate for us while he was still in the Chaktomuk Ward, and Sunday Elder Gardner had to speak, leaving Elder Hall to translate. He did a marvelous job! He can translate for us any time!